By: Addison Wylie Creating original comedies aimed towards a teen demographic is not an easy task. Sex and drugs, peer pressure, and crucial life changes are just some of the topics these movies may touch upon. Some filmmakers are able to take the content and spin it into gold. They are able to make the young audiences laugh and sometimes the teenagers walk away with learning something about how to adapt to the “real world”….

By: Addison Wylie Andy Kaufman, Tom Green, and Sacha Baron Cohen are three comics who share a similar sense of humor. The comedians take on a radically different persona and propose situations or questions to unsuspecting individuals. This act usually reveals authentic awkward and confused reactions from the public. With features like Bruno and more-so Borat, Cohen has been able to take this specific type of comedy and use it to confront audiences with topics…

By: Addison Wylie The Harry Potter series has always been an interesting set of movies to observe. Not only have they struck strong notes with fans of the books written by J.K Rowlings, but the films have transferred well to movie goers who haven’t even picked up a Harry Potter novel. Also, as the films have progressed, the work has gotten darker and more dreary and has matured along with the actors. Harry Potter and…

By: Addison Wylie Long distance relationships are tough codes to crack. Few couples manage to take this strenuous situation and make it work. Others find it hard dealing with the fact that they won’t see each other for long amounts of time, the constant phone calls and text messages, and having that meandering thought that the other person may be fooling around with other people. Going The Distance is a movie that is a bona-fide…

By: Addison Wylie When a genre film is released that has been deemed as “bad” or “underwhelming”, I’ll usually stick with my go-to rule of thumb. That rule is that if the director’s heart and passion is in the right place and an audience can see that integrity on the big screen, the film can be redeemed in some areas. Skyline, a sci-fi film directed by the Brothers Strause, seems to fall into this category…

By: Addison Wylie Mark Romanek’s last feature film was 2002’s One Hour Photo; a film that many stated was “hitchcockian” in it’s way to set up an eerie mood and in its method to study a sympathetic yet disturbing character suffering from both physical and emotional abuse. Now, almost a decade later, Romanek returns with Never Let Me Go where he continues to play with emotions but strays away from that uncomfortable tone One Hour…

By: Addison Wylie Despicable Me left a bad taste in my mouth. There was nothing more disappointing than being subjected to an animated film that missed every mark even though it had a very interesting, original plot. Megamind, the latest animated movie to dabble in the supervillian-with-a-heart territory, has cheered me up. What Despicable Me failed to do, DreamWorks Animation picked up the fumble and has presented us a a fun and lively time at…

By: Addison Wylie Quirk McGurks. That’s my new label for elements found in independent cinema that are quirky for quirky sakes. It all started in 2008’s Sunshine Cleaning where Amy Adams’ character’s son Oscar liked to lick things because he liked to lick. Thinking longer about Quirk McGurks, I realized that in Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, a Quirk McGurk appears when the youngest son in the family starts masturbating in a library…

By: Addison Wylie A strange occurrence happens every so often where films dealing with similar subject matter will be released in the same year. This year, those films are Buried and 127 Hours. The subject matter at hand? Both films feature our lead protagonist trapped in a small space and we follow them as they fight for survival. Although the sticky situation is similar, the two films shouldn’t be compared. 127 Hours, the latest film…

By: Addison Wylie “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.” -Mugatu (Will Ferrell) in Zoolander Despicable Me is one of those movies where the glowing feedback is flabbergasting. What is it about this film that clicked with so many audiences? It helps that the film is geared towards families with younger children but still, what are families finding so charming about this film in particular? The writing is below pedestrian and the animation is as…